Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Well hello from Chile everyboody!!

Chile is beautiful! The MTC is right on temple grounds so
every morning when I walk out the doors or look out the window the temple is
the first thing I see and its amazing. Its summer here so the weather is great
and everything is green which is a nice change from Utah!

My district is composed of two Elders and nine Hermanas.
Those poor Elders! The hermanas in my group are absolutely hilarious. We all
get along well (maybe too well we have to be told to be quiet a lot). We are
the newest group of gringos so none of us know spanish really but we try to
talk to the latino Elders and Hermanas during meals. I embarrass myself a lot
trying to speak spanish but Ive come to terms with it.

I got put into a trio companionship with Hermana Cook and
Hermana Wright. They are both very musically inclined and make me feel bad
about myself daily when they harmonize to every song that has ever existed.
They are both absolutely crazy we have a lot of fun together. Trios are harder
to work in to teach lessons because we all teach differently and we all have
different ideas but its ok because I know that because its harder I am learning
more than I might otherwise and its teaching me humility!

Classes are difficult but I enjoy them. Spanish is coming
along slowly but surely. They had us teaching lessons in Spanish by the second
day here which was crazy! It wasn't a great lesson because our Spanish is so
limited but it was a lesson all the same. We teach two or three lessons a day
and we are definitely improving with every lesson!

The food here is a lot of rice and potatoes and interesting
meat but I haven't had any meals that i haven't liked yet. The bread and ice cream
here are AMAZING so Im doing my best not to eat my weight in ice cream every
day. I've given up resisting the bread though...

This morning for physical activity we got a soccer game
going. It was the latina Elders vs the gringo Elders and Hna Barnett and I
jumped in on the latino team. I think everyone expected us to be terrible but
we held our own pretty good and i even scored a goal! Our team killed the
gringo team (of course) and so now every time Hna Barnett and I see the latino
Elders we played with they pretend to worship us and act like we are super cool
its so funny (and not sacrilegious i promise!).

So funny story: on Sunday the mission presidents wife gave
us this super long lecture about not flirting with the Elders and said about
1000 times DO NOT TOUCH THE ELDERS. Not a big problem in our district of
basically all girls. But a few hours later at lunch my good friend from
Colombia, Elder Martinez, came in to visit (he is serving his mission in the
Santiago mission) and I ran over and almost hugged him but i caught myself and
shook his hand. We are only supposed to take pictures on p day but we snuck
into the stairwell to take one really quick (our companions came with us of
course) and so as we were standing together and his companion took the picture
Hna Brady (the mission presidents wife) walked around the corner. Of course.
Elder Martinez basically ran away and Hna Brady lectured me (and my
companions) about how taking pictures with elders looks bad and sends wrong
impressions and stuff. I thought it was kind of hilarious but I don't know if
Hna brady really likes me anymore...

Anyways I'm doing great and loving life. During the day i
often am tired or frustrated but every night, no matter how good or bad the day
was, I go to bed happy. I know that the Lord qualifies those he calls so I know
that if we all keep working Spanish will come and we will be able to do all
that God has planned for us. I love you all and hope you all have the best
week!!